joelbct wrote:
Ah thanks, orchid and t shop both look good. Also found one called tea drunk. Good to know. I have been to Cha-an in nyc, the Japanese tea house, which is excellent, and I recall Ippodo opened an NYC branch, but too often, the typical 'American' tea house experiences tend to be disappointing, as described in the recent thread on the solitary existence of being a tea lover in America hard to throw a dart without hitting a 'specialty' coffee roaster or cafe in urban and even suburban America though!

Te Company in the West Village on West 10th Street also has great oolongs. I'm sipping her Pear Mountain LiShan right now, purchased on my last trip there, very good quality at a reasonable rate for the city. Elena the owner is from Taiwan and quite knowledgeable; https://www.te-nyc.com/

kyarazen wrote:
with regards to dancong, i used to speak well of a local dancong merchant, but these days, their inconsistencies and lesser storage methods have left me sorely disappointed to the point of not being a returning customer anymore.. many of the mail ordered ones or free samples from insta/fb marketing are always doped with added aromatics.. tough to get decent good tea~

Your comment makes me think about some suspicious samples of Dancong I tasted some time ago. They had intense aroma and flavour but did not linger at all.
Is that added aromatics in samples easy to detect? Is as evident as in a commercial grade Earl Grey, for instance?
Any suggestion as how to check for this added aromas or flavours?

kyarazen wrote:
with regards to dancong, i used to speak well of a local dancong merchant, but these days, their inconsistencies and lesser storage methods have left me sorely disappointed to the point of not being a returning customer anymore.. many of the mail ordered ones or free samples from insta/fb marketing are always doped with added aromatics.. tough to get decent good tea~

Your comment makes me think about some suspicious samples of Dancong I tasted some time ago. They had intense aroma and flavour but did not linger at all.
Is that added aromatics in samples easy to detect? Is as evident as in a commercial grade Earl Grey, for instance?
Any suggestion as how to check for this added aromas or flavours?

VanFersen wrote:
I had a discussion a couple of days ago if it is OK to prepare Wuyi Yancha and Dancong in the same unglazed teapot (Yixing, Petr Novak, Nixing or Jianshui) - In my opinion I am a little bit troubled with this idea.

For my example - At the moment I am waiting for two Chao Zhou pots I am going to use only for dancong. At the moment I use a glazed tea pot by Petr Novak for Wuyi and now (not liking it that much) for Dancong too - Why not liking it?

Because this very teapot isn't glazed entirely which means there are some parts unglazed (as small part inside the lid and inside the sprout which are unglazed). Because of its special glaze there are some dots and cracks in the glaze which uncovers the clay underneath. So I wonder if such small spots or cracks could store the aroma and also release it? Or is it to minimal to have any impact on the actual outcome of the taste?

Is there any of you who use a totally unglazed pot for Dancong and Wuyi? What are your experiences and opinions?

I would say unglazed depends on how it is fired, a wood-fired teapot from Taiwan won’t be an issue as the long firing process makes the clay as impermeable as if it was glazed. As for Petr’s pots I do not know how his clay and firing method behaves in regards to that. Having seen some of his pots in person I think they might be a bit on the porous side, muting some teas. Especially the one which looks a bit orangey on the inside.

I have been swapping wood-fired Taiwan pots between a variety of teas and there is no discernable colouring off whatsoever. But I am staying in the Oolong cultivar family (Qing, Roasted, Black, Aged).

Different story to the other kind of pot which prevails in Taiwan, normal electric firing with glaze on the outside only.

In my (limited exposure) opinion the difference between DC and YC is not large enough to make different pots strictly necessary. Unless those are the main two teas you like to drink and have enough pots available anyways.

I don't understand the discussion here really. There are many Wuyi yancha that are very different amongst each other. The same is the case with Dancongs. Both can be low, medium and high roast oolongs and each of them can have many different flavours and aromas. With regards to dedicating teapots to certain types of tea, it's really about how far you wanna go. But classifying based on roast level or aroma type might be a better approach then the origin.